Borderlands 2: A new Tale
by DarkSkul
Summary: Re-Telling of the campaign with all 6 Vault Hunters and with some twists!
1. Robots and Bullymongs

Chapter 2

**Maya's**** POV**

"Ugh… what happened?" That was the first thing I heard after the explosion. The second thing was, "Great, another dead Vault Hunter. Handsome Jack's been busy." I mentally cringed, that voice was annoying.

I opened my eyes and looked around for the other three people that were with me on the train. Salvador was looking around for something, most likely his gun, which had flown away. Then a thought crossed my mind that made my blood run cold. _Where was my gun? _I quickly turned around, looking at the snow around us looking for the familiar colours of my Maliwan. Drat. Looks like I'm going to have to find a new one somewhere.

Then I saw Zero, staring at the stupid robot in front of us. He was listening intently and realized the robot was holding something out to me, a class 12 heads up display from Dahl. Zero was already installing it, Salvador was still looking for his gun with no luck and Axton was looking after some girl passed out in the snow.

She looked like a high school student but there was no way, this was a ruthless outlaw-filled planet where people had to kill each other to survive, where everything on this planet wanted you dead. This was Pandora. Other than that she had red hair that was pulled into twin bunches that were sticking up. She wore a jacket that featured a large skull on the back and her shirt had a skull on it as well. She wore a skirt and black and white stockings with a belt that had a hammer on it. The most amazing thing about this girl was her robot arm. It looked complicated and I found myself wondering where she got it made and why.

Salvador yelled suddenly and I spun around, thinking he had found everyone's guns but what I saw made me freeze. He had followed me, great. The giant psycho that saved my life as I was waiting for the train, the one who had gone on a rampage that killed all those rats that were sneaking up behind me. He was the one person on this planet that didn't want me dead or was praising me. "W-Who are you?" I heard the pandoran native say. "Relax." I found myself saying, "We can trust him, he saved my life."

"So you vouch for him then? If he tries to kill us later on will you put a bullet in his head?" The voice of the Commando filled the air and left a uncomftable silence there instead. I turned to him to find everyone staring at me, Axton, Zero, Salvador and the girl who was now awake. " Yes. I vouch for him and if he tries to betray us I will put a bullet in his head but I know it won't come to that" Everyone stared at Axton, Krieg or myself in disbelief that I would defend a psycho.

**Gaige's****POV**

So after everyone had finished yelling at each other we started walking behind Claptrap to his home. I was still disoriented after the explosion that should of killed Axton and his friends. After the shouting match I tried to summon Deathtrap and show them I was a awesome vault hunter but some snow must of gotten stuck in my cybernetic arm meaning until I could get it out I couldn't summon DT. I couldn't help but study claptrap as we walked to his house, which I'm sure he found annoying.

One thing I found interesting was that when ai got tired, Krieg would hoist me up on his shoulders, even if it unsettled me for the first minutes as I could see the dried blood on his buzz saw axe.

Finally we got to the funny robots house, a broken down shack in the middle of an abandoned wasteland covered with snow and ice. The Claptrap unit rolled over to a little blue scanner built in to the wall a d escalated to eye level with a quick scan and the door began to ope-

"AAAND OOPEN"

A sharp loud shriek pieced through the silence, shattering it.

"What the hell was that!", the weird chick yelled who had just arrived with the rest of 'The gang'. Krieg grunted, obviously wanting an answer.

"It was that STUPID ro- hey, where'd it go!"

The door was wide open sucking the cold bitter air. We quickly entered the shack with claptraps voice getting louder and louder, for our enjoyment. We came in to what looked like the main part of the building. There was a stage-like area with what looked like a furnace on it just opposite the door, but there was a whole other section next to it. There was a poker table with chips and money stashed around with broken Claptrap units sitting around. There were several boxes scattered around with ammo of all variety, money and health vials. Claptrap was saying something about a Bullymong called Knuckle Dragger while Zero, Maya and Axton were listening intently.

Suddenly with a roar a giant bullymong jumped down the furnace, landed on the stage thingy and grabbed Claptrap while he was running away. With a clean swoop he held Claptrap upside down, and pulled Claptraps eye out while Claptrap screamed, "MY EYE! AHHHH!" The rest of us were frozen at this surprise attack on the robot that had saved us but as the giagantic bullymong left, everyone except me reached for a gun that they'd forgotten they'd lost, and looked angry.

We then saw the eyeless Claptrap fall on the ground and he heard him say, "The gun, the guns in the cabinet" I ran to the one cabinet that I couldn't open earlier and saw 6 basic repeaters fall out, and I quickly grabbed one before anyone could say otherwise. I caught Axton's eye and silently pleaded with him to let me keep the gun, so that I could defend myself in the Pandoran wasteland. I took the silence and lack of response as a yes and moved over so everyone else could grab one.

*********************************************************************************Zero's POV**

This Vault seems to be a worthy challenge as I see the company I find myself caught up in seems to be abnormal. A ex-Dahl commando with authority issues and a addiction for glory, a Siren who wants to find out about her heritage and her connection to the Vault, murdering anyone who gets in her way, a Pandoran native who enjoys murder and believes the stories about the vault without a doubt, a schoolgirl who accidentally murdered her science fair rival and was forced to escape to this desolate wasteland planet. Krieg was a mystery, even to me and I used to deal in mystery's. As I considered everything that brought me here I barely noticed the various bullymongs that the others dispatched with ease, including Gaige who somehow had the same repeater as us and looked guilty at me when she saw me looking. I figured now was the ideal time for my favorite haiku. "**Leaves falling from trees / Snow drifting onto the ground / Life leaving your corpse**." I saw the others looking at me strangely and I just shrugged and walked on.

Eventually we passed enough of the snow-covered cliffs and blanketed ground to reach a big clearing. Suddenly Claptrap spoke up saying something that put all of us on edge. "Oh, my eye just switched back on! I see some tough looking minions and an incredibly handsome robot. Which means that whoever has my eye, is very close!" Suddenly a broken car was thrown narrowly missing me and Salvador. The giant bullymong from earlier, Knuckle Dragger, leaped front of us and charged at us.

We all dived to the sides of the beast as he charged. Axton seemed to use all the military training he had collected and started yeling orders out for us. "Sal! Zero! Distract the thing while Maya, Kreig and myself will start focusing fire on the weak points! Gaige stay behind that rock and don't come out untill it's dead ok?"

"NO! I'm going to fight as well Axton!" The refusal of his orders had affected Axton, he clearly looked angry but had no time to argue as Knuckle Dragger suddenly leaped at Maya, who was forced to jump to the side landing on Kreig and effectivly making sure they couldn't fight as he jumped back on his platform and threw another car at them, trapping them underneath. When he next came down he brought a load of other bullymongs with him making this all the more harder as whenever me or Salvador got near to him, one of the smaller bullymongs would tackle us to the ground, but if we targeted them instead we would be sent flying by Knuckle Dragger. The fight continued like this for a while when eventually Gaige started killing off the little 'mongs so Axton, Salvador and myslef could focus on the main bullymong.

The three of us were jumping and dodging Knuckle Draggers attacks while hitting him with our melee weapons and shooting him whenever we had a opportunity. Suddenly one of the bullymongs Gaige was dealing with knocked her out and threw her against the cliff face, causing Axton to sprint over to her unconscious form and begin checking her over. Me and Salvador looked at each other and silently agreed that he would take over from Gaige, leaving me with Knuckle Dragger. As I jumped one of his swipes I saw a perfect shot and took it, hitting him right in the face and killing him. I saw him drop Claptraps eye and I saw it roll towards Axton and the unconscious Gaige. As I bent over to pick it up I caught a glimpse of Axton's dogtags and thought of all our times together in the Dahl Military and all the times he hit on me.

A/N: Thank you to all the reviewers (Both of you) I have taken your advice into consideration to see if I can put it in somewhere! I plan to update every week but will not know what day it will come out so sorry! A big thank you to my friends Jahrel and Dante as they have given me ideas and some lines for this chapter. Read and Review! Bye!

-AvidReader


	2. The Southern Shelf

Salvador's POV

After the skinny tall guy, Zero or whatever, killed the pendejo Knuckle Dragger we worked together to kill the remaining 'mongs. It didn't take that long but you could see the amount of skill that he used to kill. It was impressive, but not as impressive as my usual 'Shoot anything that moves' strategy.

"Hey! Want to help us over here? It's not that comfortable under this car you know!"

"STRIP THE FLESH!"

"Sorry Maya! We need to find Claptrap's eye and then pic-" The rest of the sentence was lost as the burnt-out car trapping Maya and Krieg flew up in a ball of bluish light and launched itself at Axton who with a surprised "What!" rolled out the way of it, aiming his basic Dahl repeater at the Siren with an innocent expression on her face getting up from lying down underneath the car.

"Damm Sirens and their stupid powers" could be heard by anyone who was standing next Axton as he had just muttered to avoid the further wrath of the group Siren.

"Ugggg, what happened?" came from a voice from behind us and we all turned to see the schoolgirl shaking her head and looking at us in confusion.

Just before the Military man could talk the loud annoying voice that belonged to Claptrap pierced our eardrums again. "Got my eye? Great! Now as much as I'm sure you'd like to jam your fist into my skull",

"Yes, Yes we would. Pendejo"

"Optic surgery is best left to professionals." The hijo de puta exclaimed. We decided that we should head up the path that went up the cliff that, according to the robot, was where we could find his friend 'Hammerlock' who could fix his eye. Joy.

Axton's POV

We got to a box that was locked with Hyperion technology. Claptrap thought he could open the door but as the blue light that was the scanner ran over the small robot, I had a sinking feeling that this would not work. " Access denied, locking door" only went to further that feeling. Among the groans that emitted from the group including myself, Claptrap appeared to say something that I'm sure had something to do with being eaten by bullymongs.

Suddenly the face of the mysterious woman who had talked to us earlier re-appeared saying, "Let me get that for you. Executing Phase Shift." The door in front of us started to open and we walked inside as she started talking to us again. The room was longer than wider, and it was just able to hold all six of us and Claptrap in here at once. There was a door on the other side that looked like you needed to press a button to open. Part of me started to assume that this was a trap, and mounted machine guns would emerge from the wall and start ripping holes in each of us.

However when the box appeared from the ground all thoughts of a trap disappeared from my mind and I was trying to edge my way in front of the others while we were all yelling claims to whatever gun might be inside.

"If that's a SMG you give it to me or else. Like, flying through a wall in Phaselock else ok?"

"Eh, Pendejos, if that is a Assault Rifle you pass it down here or I'll punch your stomach 'till you vomit"

"I WANT IT IF IT'S A PISTOL GUYS!"

"A Sniper Rifle I desire, if you appreciate having your head attached to your body"

"I WANT THE TASTY MEAT BICYCLE!"

"Fine, I guess I'll call for a shotgun, not like I can ask for anything else though."

As the box opened, we could all clearly see a Jakobs Shotgun, with ammunition for types of guns no-one had found yet. We all paused, the silence pressing down on us all until I let out an ear-splitting, "YESSS! SUCK IT SAL!" and picked up the shotgun, and proceeded to give it a quick inspection, looking down the sights and checking the reloading mechanism. Once I let everyone else know I was ready to keep on going, we pressed the button and the door opened.

The Southern Shelf was disappointing at first, as it was only a steep drop to a small village, presumably where Claptrap's friend Hammerlock lived. "Keep your wits about you minion- this glaciers run by a bandit named Captain Flynt. The jerk kept me as his torture plaything for several months. We played games like 'Dodge the blowtorch' and 'Don't get dunked into the pool of acid'. I was really good at the first one." said Claptrap, in his usually happy upbeat voice. Everyone looked sick at this new revelation and we al looked away from the robot in shame at ourselves.

Looking down at the village I saw several bullymongs outside the gate, next to what looked like one of their nests. I was about to warn the others to not do their usual 'Salvador' style fighting technique and jump straight into the fight where we could overcome if too many attacked us, but to lure them up here.

That plan was broken in about three seconds as with a determined yell, Gaige leapt over the edge of the cliff and aiming at the nearest one, she started firing in midair. With a sigh I leapt after her, switching to my new shotgun to save time when I landed.

As I landed, a bullymong reared up at me, and as I heard the beast's roar, I pulled my shotgun up and fired point blank into it's face, killing it instantly. I could hear Handsome Jack on the ECHOcast but I didn't register it as Gaige and I were working in tandem, killing all the bullymongs that the other had missed, making sure that the other wasn't in immediate danger. After we killed the rest of the bullymongs we picked up the loot they had dropped, normally pistol ammo, but occasionally there was money scattered around aswell.

As we turned around we saw the other Vault Hunters looking at us with worry and despair etched on their faces and before they said a word I knew it was about the ECHOcasts that had taken place while we were fighting.

"What is it? Maya? C'mon tell me"

"I-Its Jack. He put a 6 million dollar bounty on the six of us, a million each."

"WOOH HOO! WE'RE FAMOUS! CAN YOU BEL- UGGG!

"Are you going to shut up or do I have do keep you up there?"

"Did you have to Phaselock me? I mean, really?

Third Person's POV

After Claptrap and Hammerlock had a brief debate about being horrifying cruel to puppies, Hammerlock reluctantly opened the gate allowing the Vault Hunters entrance to Liar's Burg. As they walked into the village they could see several bandits were running towards them, with Flynt on the ECHO saying, "Six million bucks? Alright boys - this is Captain Flynt! I want you to find these Vault Hunters and bring 'em to me NOW!"

The Vault Hunters in question paused for a moment, despair and horror evident on their faces, which was quickly replaced with anger, which they took out on the unsuspecting marauders running towards them. The village of Liar's burg was filled with bullets flying through the air in all directions, hitting marauders who were equipped with nothing more than a shoddy pistol and not enough sense to keep moving which all the Vault Hunters except Gaige were doing.

Gaige was in a corner, holding her pistol out in front of her and looking down on the dead marauder below her that had been one of the first to be killed, and as she was looking down on it the ramifications of being a Vault Hunter were clear to her. She would have to kill other people to survive on this bandit-run planet. She couldn't comprehend the issue of murder, the fact that she had taken a life, without a thought, almost intuitively.

As the bullymongs came from the west of the village to attack, Maya noticed Gaige, oblivious to the conflict around her, staring at a dead marauder. She panicked when she saw a adult bullymong leap at her back, as she was completely unaware of the attack. Pulling her pistol around so that it faced the bullymong, she fired-right into Axtons shoulder, who had run up to the bullymong, hitting it with his hachet to distract it for a second while he ran over to Gaige.

Pulling Gaige down into the corner, Axton shot the bullymong with the Jakobs shotgun, killing it instantly. Seeing that she was still fixated on the dead bandit, and that his shoulder hurt like hell, he stayed with her, throwing his shotgun to a gleeful Salvador who had just ripped a bullymongs arm off and was hitting a bandit with it.

Zero was working efficiently with Maya, focusing on the enemies that were further away or hiding while the Siren was keeping at least one enemy in Phaselock at all times, taking out any others around the Phaselock.

Krieg was living up to his name as a Psycho and was using one bandit to smack another bandit with one hand, while shooting another with his spare hand. Eventually all the bandits and bullymongs were dead, and the Vault Hunters were examining and comparing their loot.

"Heh, I got a shotgun thanks to the military man. Gracias Pendejo!"

"Dammit Maya, next time look _before _you shoot. That hurt."

"I have shields for all of us, but who should get the weakest one?"

"STRIP THE FLESH! SALT THE WOUND"

"…"

"Gaige, honey what's wrong?"

"Maya, I-I-I killed someone."

"Gaige sweetie, we all have killed someone, _some of us _more than often" At this Salvador looked proud, Axton looked sheepish, Zero and Krieg both looked indifferent. "And while, yes, we have all taken a life or two, it was necessary to survive, most of the time." The four remaining Vault Hunters copied their earlier expressions at that.

"How about this Gaige, whenever we go on missions, you don't have to come if there aren't going to be any beasts. I'm sure Salvador will tell us what beasts are in different regions of Pandora,right Salvador?

"Eh"

"So anyway, you don't have to go with us if you don't want to."

"Thanks Maya."

After that had happened Claptrap, oblivious to the emotions running through the Vault Hunters right now, was slowly rolling towards the obviously electrified gate, talking about how he and Hammerlock were tight as 'Two cannibal midgets in a fat guys ribcage'

"Heh, that was a fun night" exclaimed Salvador.

As Claptrap hit the gate, he let loose a load of unintelligible gibberish before promptly collapsing on the ground. The thud from Claptrap's fall was immediately dwarfed by Salvador yelling,

"YES!"

**A/N: Thank you to all my reviewers, your advice has been listened to and I will take it on board. I wanted to say sorry for not updating for a while, it was my final week at school last week and I was swamped with extra work to do. The next chapter will be up (hopefully) in a week and will continue after the four quests you can do for Hammerlock and will feature (hopefully) the defeat of Captain Flynt. Bye!**

**-Avid Reader**


	3. Saving Corporal Reiss

**A/N: Just wanted to let you guys know I'm saving Krieg for around Sanctuary, I have a idea for him just ****in case**** someone thinks I'm neglecting Krieg.**

Third Person's POV

Fighting bandits was easy. Axton knew that and so did the rest of the Vault Hunters excluding Gaige. Fighting bandits on a ship called the 'Roaring Dragon' was harder but not impossible. Fighting those bandits on that ship while dealing with two gun-happy insane people who liked murder, a sixteen year old girl who couldn't kill without going into shock, a assassin who never spoke unless it was necessary, a Siren with a temper and to top it off, a robot who constantly got into trouble was impossible.

Maya had been working on her own with Gaige and Krieg, attacking bullymong nests and even fixing Gaige's Deathtrap so that she could summon it and it would attack bandits instead of them, (long story) while Zero would never speak to them unless there was a mission, and only then it would be limited, one word answers only.

As for himself, Axton was also having difficulties working with the other Vault Hunters. He had gotten used to the solo glory style in the Dahl military and couldn't get used to the idea of teamwork. He normally ran off during missions, taking out enemies with his Vladof pistol called Anarchist. He also used a weak Jakobs shotgun when he ran out of ammo for his pistol. As he made his way up to the area where everyone assumed Flynt was he considered the fact that if he was stuck with this group for the time it took to extract his revenge on Jack, he was screwed.

Barley considering the various bandits they had killed to get to this point of the shop, including those ridiculous missions they had done for Hammerlock, Axton noticted that when there was a break in the bandits, Zero would walk slowly behind Axton, as a hunter would stalk his prey. Needless to say, Axton was irritated by this.

They arrived at a section of the ship that they hoped was the last to be filled with bandits. They ran towards the bandits, stopping sometimes to check where the next enemy was, completely ignoring Gaige who had ducked into a corner trying to block out the sound of bullets, groans and triumphant yells from Krieg and Salvador as they took new guns to replace their current weapons. Looking next to her, she saw a box that she recognized from below, remembering the gleeful look on Axton's face as he saw 'DAHL' labelled on the green box. Carefully, she opened the box to look at two new weapons that made her consider if she should pick them up or not.

Gritting her teeth, Maya saw her latest target fall onto the ground lifeless and bloody, and turned to see a large metal sheet fall on steel supports, revealing more bandits hidden behind it. As she turned to fire at them, she heard a grunt close to her, and felt Axton fall on to her, both of them sprawling out on the ground, and heard him mutter, "Damm shield, had to give out now? Just had to fall and twist my ankle don't I?"

When Axton was repelled by the force of his shield breaking and the bullets that hit him afterward, he expected to twist something, his arm or leg. What he didn't expect was a angry female voice to come from underneath him, "GET OFF ME YOU COMPLETE MORON! THIS IS THE SECOND TIME ONE OF YOU IDIOTS HAVE FALLEN ON ME NEAR SOMETHING IMPORTANT! IF ANYONE DOES IT FROM NOW ON I'M GOING TO SHOOT THEM UNTIL THEY BLEED!" Jumping in the air the moment Maya started shouting, landing on his feet and wincing when his bad ankle hit the metal. "If you two are done..." came the snarky voice of the mechromancer who came out he corner looking smug at the pair of them, "You lot should be going to kill Flynt."

Growling, Maya stood up, brushed herself off, and walked away from Axton like nothing happened. Sighing, Axton extended his arm around Gaige, who had come round to stand next to him and had offered her shoulder. "Just don't get any funny ideas Axton, I'm only 16 and Uncle Sal would kill you if you tried"

"What! You know I don't like you lie that so why would yo-" He faltered when he saw Gaige laughing silently, and all the other Vault Hunter stifling laughs as they walked ahead.

Gaige's POV

As we walked towards Captain Flynt I heard the older Vault Hunters talk about what he was like and how we were going to kill him.

"So Axton, you said he likes to play with fire? What do you mean by that?"

"He has a pistol called Flynt's Tinderbox, it's a fire elemental gun that hasn't got that much base power but it has a good chance to set you on fire and deal damage over time. We'd need someone crazy enough to distract him while everyone else tried to kill him. Sal, can you distract him and while we shoot him.

"Eh Axton, there might be bandits there as well, wanna set on them?"

"Umm sure. Gaige, can you stay out of this fight? You could set DT on them and direct it to help Krieg."

Looking up I nodded faintly and muttered "Sure." I was scared for this fight, as apart from Boom Bewm and Knuckle Dragger this was the first time we had taken someone on who was stronger than us.

We reached a metal gate next to a ammo vending machine when Axton told the others that he couldn't fight because of his ankle. Looking sympathetic towards him, Maya nodded, reloaded and led the others down onto the deck of the ship which had vents all over.

You could feel the heat coming from the deck of the ship. Axton sat down on the edge and motioned for me to do the same. As I was doing that Claptrap screamed into the air," COME ON OUT FLYNT! YOUR CLAPTRAP UNIT HAS RETURNED!" The tension after he said that began to thicken the air as I heard Axton mutter next to me, " Shut up you idiot robot. You're going to get someone killed..."

I then saw Flynt for the first time, jumping from the head of the ship to a platform beneath him as he screamed, "IT'S OUR NEW TORTURE DOLL BOYS! LET'S TURN UP THE HEAT!" Seeing his figure, I worried about the plan that Axton had drawn up on the walk to this place.

As the fight started, with bandits swarming the four Vault Hunters, I found myself being drawn into the fight watching as Krieg and Sal thisok out bandits and caused a distraction for the other Vault Hunters. I saw Sal draw his Tediore shotgun in addition to the Jakobs assault rifle in his right hand and start decimate bandits left and right. "Gaige, can you get Deathtrap to pick up my turrent and drop it in the middle of the fight?" Axton muttered quietly to me, already detaching his turrent's compressed form and handing it over to me. Nodding, I summoned Deathtrap and told him to, "Drop this somewhere near Flynt, and then help Sal and Krieg ok?"

As I was watching DT, Sal and Krieg fight I heard Axton yell out, the horror evident in his voice. "ZERO! MAYA! LOOK OUT FOR THE VENTS!"

Turning around, I saw the vent that Maya and Zero where standing on light up, and as they looked at Axton I saw a pillar of flames erupt from each vent. When the flames cleared, I saw the two Vault Hunters slumped on the ground, not moving and as I saw Sal get knocked back by Flynt, I saw a button in his hands that had to activate the vents. With a primal scream of "NO YOU DON'T YOU BASTARD" I picked up my Tediore SMG, firing wildly in Flynt's direction, not noticing the psycho behind hit me over the head with his buzz-saw axe, or the fact that Flynt had gone down a while ago and was now strafing everywhere and it took Sal hitting me on the back of the head, knocking me unconscious to get me go stop.

_Gaige's Dream_

I saw a girl who was about the same age as me walk in front of me. She had dark hair, covering one of her eyes, which were blue. She had a pale complexion but the most striking thing about her was her tattoos, which looked like Maya's only these ones were white. I had to admit, she looked hot. With a jump, I realized that this was the AI that had opened the door for us after we had killed Knuckle Dragger and Claptrap locked us out.

"Listen to me, we don't have much time. Jack plans to destroy all of the bandits on Pandora, including you and your friends. You need to find the Vault Key and stop him. I'll try my best to answer any questions you have, but please keep them short."

Shocked, my first question was, "Who are you?"

"I am a Siren called Angel, but please don't let anyone, especially any Vault Hunter know. If someone else knew Jack would kill them."

My anger surged as I asked, "So why tell me?"

"Because I know that you will help me destroy Jack's ambition to destroy the bandits of Pandora, to steal the Vault Key and d-destroy his catalyst."

"WHAT!" Why do you expect that of me?

"Goodbye Gaige."

_Real life, Gaige's POV_

As I woke up the first thing I heard was waves. That made no sense so I tried to sit up and open my eyes. As I opened them however, I saw Axton's worried face staring at me, relief evident as he saw me wake up. Suddenly a sharp pain made its way in her head and she winced instinctively. Noticing this, Axton looked at me with concern, not sure whether he was needed or not.

Gritting her teeth, she waited the pain out and as soon as it did, she asked the question that had been playing on her mind. "Where are we?"

"You know how we defeated Flynt?" At this I looked shocked and repulsed, remembering that I had killed Flynt in my rage. Nodding, Axton continued, "Well we boarded Claptrap's ship, thinking it would be a couple of hours until we got there, but it turns out we have to wait a good 13 hours until we get there. 13 hours with Claptrap and no way to get to land without messing up our weapons!"

"So, how long have I been out?" With this question a scowl crossed Axton's face and he said irritated, "12 hours". A loud "HA" from Gaige only furthered in annoying the commando even more.

Zero's POV

After Axton informed us that Gaige had woken up, we all let out a sigh of relief. After Maya and myself had woken up, I found myself thinking about what had happened back on The Roaring Dragon.

According to Axton and Salvador, after Gaige had been forcefully knocked out, they had made quick work of the remaining bandits. Then they had argued with Krieg about who should keep his fire tech pistol, obviously, Krieg won. Working together, Salvador and Axton had brought Gaige to the ship, making sure Krieg was in front of them so he could not grab the guns in a loot box on the way. As they had gotten Gaige to the ship however, Krieg ran back in the opposite direction, and returning with Maya over his shoulder.

After lugging me back to the ship as quickly and quietly as possible so as not to wake me, Claptrap had informed them that the road to Sanctuary was 13 hours away from the ship, eliciting a groan from the two men. An hour into the ride, I had woken up and after learning about what had happened from Axton I decided to check up on the unconscious Gaige, letting the three Vault Hunters suff- deal with Claptrap alone.

Walking back onto the deck after a while, I found the other three asleep resting on each other. Smirking, I took a picture of the three of them and saved it on the ECHOnet. This rare moment of calm amongst all the Vault Hunters provided me with a chance to reflect on my life leading up to now. My name was Frankie. I was a Specialist with the Dahl Military, serving with a man who until a month ago, I had called Sergeant Axton. On a mission to stop violent outbreaks in Promethia, we had run into the Atlas Cooperation who had set off a bomb in a nearby building, leaving me for dead. After a while, a man approached me, and nursed me back to health. Eventually he trained me as his apprentice, teaching me how to use the suit he made me to turn invisible, how to digi-struct my katana and how to become the assassin that I was today.

Suddenly I heard movement and heard Maya call out, "Where the hell am I and why do I smell like butts and dead people?"

"We're on Claptrap's ship, heading for Sanctuary. Axton, Salvador and Krieg are asleep over there, and Gaige is unconscious in the cabin over there."

"But how did we get here? Nevermind, tell me when I wake up."

"Ok"

An hour later we had landed in a (again) icy environment called Three Horns Divide. As we all jumped of the crashed boat, we saw the bridge in front of us blow up, with someone called Corporal Reiss yelling at some bandits to go home. The bandits response was to yell at the Corporal, when 3 gunshots could be heard clearly over the ECHOnet. Worried, Gaige turned to me saying,"Which one do you think got shot?" Calmly, I replied,"As long as it doesn't involve us, I don't care."

Disposing of the local bullymongs around the area, we soon came to a machine that the woman who has appeared in front of us at least twice now suddenly appeared again. She spoke about a mechanic named Scooter who had locked this machine. Looking again, I saw three plates on the ground near it, certain that this was where the cars spawned. However a problem soon arose, who was going into the bandit infested camp to pick up a single Hyperion power module? Unsurprisingly, Salvador was the first person to run off screaming towards the camp, Gaige a close second muttering that she "needed to kill something for a while and that Salvador would probably destroy the module." Naturally, after a few short minutes, Salvador and Gaige came back, laughing and hugging each other, module in hand.

Attaching it to the machine, the AI unlocked the machine not unlike the way she had opened the door back in the Southern Shelf. The machine now unlocked, it was a mad scramble to get to the machine and get the runner that they wanted. Maya got there first, smirking as she inputted the information for the three cars she wanted spawned.

A moment later, a bright pink runner, a blood red runner and an onyx coloured runner appeared on the three plates on the ground. There was a mad rush to get to the driver's seat of the runners, in which Maya, Axton and Salvador won, Maya in the pink, Axton in red and Salvador in onyx. Each runner had a mounted MG on it, providing support for the driver. Gaige ended up gunning for Salvador, Krieg for Maya and I was stuck gunning for Axton. Axton found a radio in the runner and called Maya and Salvador. "You guys ready? Hey Sal, race you to Sanctuary, winner gets the first gun the other finds ok?"

Agreement from Salvador was all Axton needed, he started to rev the engine while Gaige cried out from her position, loud enough for everyone to hear her. "ARE YOU READY? STEADY? GO!" With this Axton and Salvador mashed their feet on their respective pedals. With a cry of frustration, Maya copied their actions a second too late, as me and Axton had already jumped the ramp, followed closely by 'Team Midget' Salvador and Gaige.

Third Person's POV

Going into the cave system proved a challenge as Axton had built up enough speed to overtake Sal at the start, but he forgot about the sharp turn he had to do to get into the cave itself. Reversing the runner so that he could get through, he saw Maya and Krieg drive into the cave and as he slammed on the pedal, he let out a grunt as he quickly caught up with the Siren and the Psycho.

Sal was cackling with glee, as he had taken the lead from under Axton, and his gunning partner was taking out bullymongs with ease, looking back at the runner catching up to him as he screamed "YOU'LL NEVER CATCH UP AXTON!"

Suddenly he felt himself jolt forward as the car stopped. Looking in front of him he saw a massive pillar of ice blocking the way in the middle of two different ice paths. Cursing, he saw Axton and Zero take the path to his right, as Maya and Krieg took the path to his left.

Maya swore under her breath as Krieg let her know that Sal and Gaige were catching up in his own unique way. "STRANGE DWARF MAN AND ROBOT ARM COMING RIGHT UP!" Seeing Axton up ahead, an idea formed in her head. Quickly, she lined her car just behind Axton's car and on the built-in radio's she yelled at Sal, "COME AND RAM ME DWARF!" Hearing the curses fly out of Sal's mouth she knew her insult had worked. Seeing Sal come up behind her, she waited for Sal's car to be close enough and fast enough before she turned and reversed, letting Sal's car crash into Axton's and letting her go ahead of the pair of them.

She saw a opening ahead of her, with sunlight streaming out of it. Grinning, she told Krieg to open his ECHOmap and find Sanctuary. Before she could escape however, she was rammed on both sides, letting her know Axton and Sal had teamed up to get even with her. As the sandwich maneuver continued, the team found themselves jumping out of the cave at the same time, looking for a split second at the serene tranquility of Three Horns Divide, as they could see almost everything around them. Yelling out, Axton yelled out, "Follow me to get to Sanctuary!" Landing, the three teams of Vault Hunters followed Axton, as he took them straight to Sanctuary. Amazed, Maya asked him how he had done it without looking at a map. "I saw it as we jumped it, how else do you think I found it?" Seeing Sal and Maya's dumbfounded faces, he said, "Please tell me you two saw it as well." While this was going on, Gaige had pressed a button, and a hologram of a man wearing odd armor showed up.

"Stay out of Sanctuary you Bloodshot skagli- Oh you're Vault Hunters! Hang on, Commander Roland wanted to speak to you." Waiting a moment, Maya asked, "Does anyone know who this 'Commander Roland' is?"

"Yeah, he was a Vault Hunter 5 years ago, travelling Pandora with a Siren Lilith, someone called Mordecai and Brick. He formed the Crimson Raiders with them when they came to Sanctuary." While Maya, Axton and Gaige talked about Roland and the past of the Crimson Raiders, in another part of the road Sal, Zero and Krieg were arguing about who had won the race. "Even if we all got here at the same time amigo, I was the first on the ground.

"Regardless, none of us are in Sanctuary yet, so the contest is still on. We have to wait for this Commander Roland to grant us entry before the competition ends."

At that moment Roland came on the ECHO, saying that before he let us into Sanctuary we needed to find Corporal Reiss and bring back the power core that powered Sanctuary's shields. He left us with that and as we headed back to the runners, Gaige, Krieg and Zero sprinted towards the cars, getting in the drivers seats as they didn't get to drive before.

Grumbling, Axton, Maya and Sal climbed into the gunner seats of the cars they had driven before. As they followed the waypoint that had appeared on their minimaps, Axton noticed an ECHO device on the ground a bit ahead of them. "Zero, stop here a moment, I need to pick something up over there on the ground." As Axton picked up the ECHO device all of the Vault Hunters could hear Corporal Reiss talking into the device, obviously in pain. "Got the power core from the Bloodshots… Blew the bridge… I'm going to take cover in the Marrowfields…"

Looking at Sal, Zero asked, "Do you know where the Marrowfields are?" Looking around, the Gunzerker pointed at a collection of spikes in the ground, saying, "Over there." Walking into the area where Sal was pointing, Maya and Axton very quickly formed a plan to find Reiss.

"Ok, Maya, Sal and Zero, you go right and take out any bandits you see. Gaige, Krieg and I will go left taking out any bandits we come across ok?"

Heading left, Axton, Gaige and Krieg found three psychos beating up a figure on the ground. Roaring, Krieg charged at the biggest one, tackling him to the ground. Pulling up his Torgue shotgun, Axton fired at the other two psychos that had started running towards them. Hesitating, Gaige fired her SMG at them, killing them while Krieg was beating up the larger psycho, eventually driving his buzz-saw axe into its face blade first, killing him stone-dead. Axton bent down to the figure, trying to get his attention.

Maya, Zero and Sal found themselves near a huge structure, with a horde of bandits hiding inside. Sighing, Maya nodded to Sal who, in turn, grinned wickedly and sprinted off into the structure filled with bandits, pulling out his shotgun in addition to his Jakobs assault rifle. "Do you believe that was the correct thing to do?" Zero carefully asked. Maya replied, "I'll never forgot what the Head Monk told me right before I left the abbey. "Child you have so much left to learn" he said. I imagine he would have continued speaking, had I not pulled the trigger." Nodding, Zero ran off to find some bandits to decimate, Maya following him a second behind.

When she caught up to him, she saw a badass marauder approach them, "Hello Badass." Zero said, just before sprinting towards the badass while Maya sprinted into cover, firing bursts at the badass with her fire Maliwan SMG, reducing its shield. Maya watched in amazement as the marauder swiped at Zero, who disappeared. Suddenly, blood spurted from the marauders back, as Zero's katana emerged from thin air buried in the badass's back, a second before Zero who jumped over it, pulling out his pistol and as he landed, he said "As my ex-sergeant would say, AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!" Zero then pulled the trigger, letting the bullet embed itself in the bandits head.

Maya then saw something drop from above them. Looking up, she saw Sal killing bandits left and right, laughing manically. Looking at the object, she realized that it was the power core that they needed for Sanctuary. Frowning, she ECHO'd Axton, as she picked up the power core.

"Yeah?"

"Axton, how do we have the power core over here? Isn't supposed to be with Reiss?"

"Reiss is dead. Some psychos were beating him up when we got here, we killed them all but it was too late."

"Reiss is dead? Does R-"

"Roland know? Yeah, he wants us to return. We're at the runners, waiting for you lot."

"We're coming now, let me grab Sal."

A little over an hour later, Axton recognized Maya's group walking towards the runners. Grumbling, he yelled out, "What took you so long? It's been an hour."

"Sorry, Sal didn't want to leave."

As they got into the cars and headed back, Axton thought back to whenever he lost someone on a mission back when he was in the military and of course, Sarah. Gaige thought back to memories of her dad, still living on EDEN-5. Maya thought back to when she lived with the Order of the Impending Storm, and how she killed their leader, Brother Sophis. Sal thought of his village Ovejas, and of his beloved abuela. Zero thought of her time with her mentor, and with the Dahl military before the bomb and as they got to Sanctuary's gate, Krieg thought of nothing but of meat bicycles.

A/N: DONE! Sorry about the delay but I was with my brother at USC Santa Pod which is a HUGE car show! So anyway, thank you to all my reviewers and anyone who favorite or is following this story! Next chapter will be in Sanctuary, and will finally be in Kriegs POV!

-Avid Reader


	4. The Firehawk

Krieg's POV

"_**Shows Voice in head**__"_

"Krieg actually speaking"

"_**So, Sanctuary is nice, why are you glaring at that man? Remember my promise, you kill an innocent I WILL KILL US BOTH.**__"_

"ARRG SHUTUP SHUTUP SHUTUP!"

"_**See, they're looking at us now. You need to chill out or Axton, the guy glaring extra hard at us, will kill us! Why don't we just walk away? We've only been in Sanctuary for a hour, I'm sure we could find someone who needs our help."**_

Walking around Sanctuary, Krieg noticed that most of Sanctuary's residents had two distinct reactions to him. Half of the population looked scared of, and would hide in their homes when he sprinted past. The other half would mutter angrily under their breath glaring at him. Confused, Krieg walked to the nearest building with its door open. Inside he saw a man in white scrubs, restraining an obviously insane person on the operating table. Listening in, Krieg heard, "IM STARVING, I WANNA EAT YOUR BABIES"

Krieg's eyes sharpened and took a quick observational sweep of the room to check for the imminent danger only to find none, just the restrained patient, covered head to toe in blood, almost like had gone for a leisurely swim in a pool of red paint.

"_**Wow, that guy makes us look sane."**_

"Son, this is gonna hurt" Watching in fascination, Krieg saw the first man bring a buzz-saw axe down on the psycho, almost killing him. Krieg saw as the man looked at Krieg and jumped, his hand automatically going to the Torgue pistol he digistructed. Seeing that Krieg was no danger, the man lowered his gun and extended his hand. "Doctor Zed, at your service." Krieg looked at Zed and screamed, "HELLO DOCTOR MAN, CAN I HAVE THAT MEAT BICYCLE?"

"Umm meat bicycle? What's that?" Grunting impatiently Krieg pointed at the buzz-saw axe in Zed's hand. Following Krieg's eyes, he realised that the well-built psycho wanted a buzz-saw axe, probably because he didn't have his own. Feeling nervous, Zed tried to the pacify the impatient psycho by saying, "If I talk to Marcus, we could probably make this an elemental m-meat bicycle, so if you could wait until I go over to talk to him, you'd get a better one than this."

"_**It's a good deal, maybe we should take it? Say yes, thank you."**_

"I'M THE CONDUCTOR OF THE POOP TRAIN!" With that Krieg sprinted off, probably to find more people to terrorise. Sighing in relief, Zed looked dejectedly at the axe in his hand and yelled out to his assistant, "I'm going over to Marcus, don't kill anyone."

Walking around town, Krieg found a place that had two occupants. Claptrap and Salvador. The latter was pointing a rocket launcher that Krieg recognized as a Maliwan fire launcher at the small robot, obviously scaring Claptrap as Krieg overheard the ending of Sal's threat., "-ever try wasting my time like that again, I will make sure there won't be enough pieces of you for Gaige to build a toaster,understand?" Seeing that the threat had worked, Sal turned to see Krieg staring at his little spectacle with interest and seeing the psycho with a rare look of thoughtfulness on his face, Krieg's next statement came as a real shock. "DWARF-MAN HIDING BURNING ROCKET IS SCARING ROBOT?

"Yeah, found it on Flynt's ship during the fight. So don't tell the other's, especially the little gir-" Sal's statement was interrupted by a snarl coming from somewhere close by. Krieg saw Gaige, Anarchist pistol out, looking downright pissed off at Sal. Over the month that they had been travelling together, the Vault Hunters all learned pretty quickly not to call Gaige a little girl. The first time they called her that, Axton had spent three days unconscious, and all of Maya's ammo disappeared, even if she bought more. Krieg watched with amusement as Gaige picked up Sal with her robot arm, and dragged him off to an unknown location.

_Timeskip- 3 months _

Maya's POV

I wandered through Sanctuary, observing the people walking around. Everyone looked at us Vault Hunters with curiosity, indifference or even with fear as I made my way towards the part of the city I knew Axton, Sal and Krieg stayed in I started thinking about the team we had formed. Axton and Zero seemed to be lone wolfs, taking out enemies independently with the former working with Gaige at times. Gaige and Sal worked together well, even going as far as Sal gunzerking, as he called it, with Gaige riding his shoulders, making them a dangerous killing team. Krieg and I worked well with each other, a perfect mix of long range and close quarters fighting.

"Maya, can you get to Roland's place, we found something." Came the cold, emotionless voice of Zero and as I made my way to the familiar building, my mind started imagining all the different things that would result in all six of us meeting at once. Usually it was two or three of us but for this to happen it had to be big.

When I got to the meeting room, I saw Axton and Zero exchanging guns in a corner, Gaige and Scooter were examining DT and Krieg and Sal were having an arm wrestle in the other corner. Coughing to gain their attention, I asked loudly, "So why are we all here?"

"Gaige found an ECHO recorder in her room and, well just listen to it."

Sighing, Gaige summoned DT back into her arm and pulled out a ECHO recorder and pressed play.

"This is the Firehawk. Come to Frostburn Canyon or people will die."

"The Firehawk? You mean the mass murdering psycho bandit? If he's got Roland…" Scooter started.

"So what? We still to go there and find out. We have to get Roland back."

"So what now? Are we going to head out now or -"

My question died in my mouth as I saw Handsome Jack's face staring at me from my ECHO device. He...sounds a bit pissed.

"So, you piss-for-brains are still alive. This is why you can never trust those stupid bandits to even kill you retards. Sooooooooooo. How was your day? You know, your days of killing and slaughtering innocent people. Wait...killing isn't the best word to use. Give me a sec..."

I could hear Jack moving around, pushing things around his desk, clearly searching for something.

"God damn where the hell is it?." muttered Jack,

"Blake!, Where the hell is my thesaurus!" Jack bellowed,

We all look around at each other, not quite sure what to make of this situation.

"I believe that you left it on Prometheus when we last visited Sir. If I may sir, what word do you want to change?

"Killing, I'm insulting the Vault Hunters right now and I feel...you know what, forget it. HEY SOLDIER BOY!"

We all look at Axton.

"You were in the Dahl Military right? I have a certain someone here that might interest you…"

Axton walked up closer to the group as if he had some point to prove. Show off.

"Why you asking?"

"Does the name Sarah mean anything to you?"

Axton's face flicked, a look of worry appeared on his face, only to be replaced with a look as hard as granite. I didn't know who this Sarah was, but it was obvious she was someone of importance.

"What..did you say?" Axton questioned, his voice filled with agro. He was fooling nobody, we could all see he was scared.

"You deaf or something or maybe you're just stupid because I know that you heard me. Sarah, your ex-wife is now a member of our wonderful Friendship Gulag! Isn't life great! Now, if you want to see her again, you may consider giving us a way into Sanctuary and all of your little bandit friends."

We all looked at Axton, his face revealing nothing. For once I actually fell a bit sorry for him. Just a bit, that low blow got him pretty hard. The others seem to pondering the same as me, whether or not he will give up Sanctuary. Even though we will totally win, but…

"So? Will you give them all to us or watch as Sarah gets shot in the head with all of Pandora watching. Oh, and before I forget we will also be broadcasting her screams across the ECHO net as she has been ravaged by maybe one or 12 rakks and a few skaggs. Oh and believe me when I say that is excruciating."

We all looked at Axton, worry evident on our faces as we saw him considering it.

"Can you all leave, start making your way towards Frostburn Canyon. I'll catch up."

"Axton, do you want me to stay with yo-"

"No Maya, I need to deal with this on my own. Or do you not trust me?"

"No I do trust you it's just that you look like you're about to faint"

"Go Maya. I'll be fine."

With that we left him to his thoughts and a smug Jack.

(2 Days Later)

I dodged another bullet that came zooming towards me as I saw Gaige's nimble form jump over another nomad while unloading a round of bullets into another. We had been fighting for almost 3 hours, after travelling to this cave that we were stuck in.

Vaguely I saw Sal and Zero, a mismatched pair, take on bandits together, Sal taking out masses with his new Vladof spinguns while Zero took individuals out, stabbing them in the back while invisible.

Slowly but surely we were pushed into a corner, Krieg and Sal standing in front of us all while the others helped take on the overpowering masses. Suddenly a roar came up from the back, and we all watched in awe as explosions rocked the enemies ranks, bandits being sent flying in all directions. Through the smoke, I made out the distinct shape of Axton's turret taking out groups of nomads and psychos mercilessly while more explosions came from seemingly random parts of the crowd.

Revitalised, we brought our own guns up and took out the stragglers and within an hour all the bandits were dead. Standing upon a hill of blood, bones and bodies stood Axton with a fire elemental Tediore rocket launcher over his shoulder. He looked right at us and allowing a cocky smirk on his face he uttered a single word that made me hate and respect him at the exact same moment.

Axton's POV

"Sup"

I mentally laughed when I saw their dumbfounded faces, and as I stood there watching them, I was reminded of Sarah and her expression whenever I did something stupid and brave at the same time. I felt guilty and unsure, whether I had made the right choice, what would Roland, or even Sarah done in this situation? Given up their friends, their city for the woman they had once loved, or risked her life and carried on the path to defeating any dick who had threatened them (Lets call said dick Jack.)

Grinning, I jumped over Zero and the rest of the Vault Hunters, pulling out my Dahl SMG I fired into the crowd of bandits that had emerged from a deeper part of the cave we were fighting in. Tearing through the bandits, I noticed Zero fighting. His katana had been knocked out of his hands by a badass psycho. I suddenly realized I had seen this type of fighting before, in one of my troops who died on a mission on Promethia. Frankie Snow, her name was, and she was one of my best specialists. She had this amazing strategy for dealing with enemies, which was to act all weak and sheepish with her gun in single fights, and then let rip into the enemy when they least expect it. Zero seemed to be doing something similar to that, as he would let the enemy get close, then finish the bandit off.

Eventually, we reached what looked like the Firehawks lair. Realising this, I muttered to the others, "We should head back to the ammo and shields machines. We don't know how powerful this Firehawk is."

"Agreed. We should also prepare strategies, as we don't know how the Firehawk fights."

"Who cares? I say we find this Firehawk and crush him- Vault Hunter style!"

"Thanks for those words of encouragement Sal"

Healed and restocked on ammo, we followed a path that led to a large circular arena. We saw two Bruisers, apparently leaders of the Bloodshots raiding party. As Sal and I pulled our weapons up to fire, a light, which was the same colour as Maya's phaselock. When the light disappeared, we saw a woman with vibrant red hair standing where the center of the light was. She looked at us, running a critical eye over us and she seemed to be surprised by Maya's appearance. " 'Sup, The names Lilith, now let's talk about rescuing my boyfriend."

At this revelation, that Lilith was the Firehawk and Roland's boyfriend our confusion soon turned to anger. "You mean you could of just 'flashed' into Sanctuary and we wouldn't have to spend 2 days getting to this exact moment?" Maya raged at the older siren.

"Well since most of the population is fearful of me, and the ones who know i'm the Firehawk are Roland, Brick, Mordy and yourselfs, I don't think that's possible. Do you?"

Suddenly, Lilith collapsed to the ground, asking for eriduim. Worried, I sent Maya and Sal to find eriduim for the elder siren. Frowning I looked at Lilith, thinking about the events of the past two

days. " How did you get the ECHO to Sanctuary without anyone noticing? We've been in that house constantly."

She looked puzzled. "What ECHO? Me and Roland were discussing how to contact you yeah, but I never got round to it since I was too busy taking care of the bandits." Odd, I thought she had given us the ECHO recorder. Just then Maya came back with the eriduim and handed it to Lilith. She absorbed it into her body, creating the same light as Maya's phaselock. Once the light died down, explosions rocked the ceiling of the arena, signifying that the bandits would soon be here.

Almost at once, bandits dropped down on the platforms that housed some of Maya's few worldly possessions. Yelling out, Maya and Sal started shooting at the ones on the left, Gaige and I took on the ones on the right, leaving Krieg and Zero their pickings of anyone they chose. I was cautious as the more we spread out around the circular arena, the greater chance we would have of killing or hitting each other. Two badass psycho's dropped down, both of them roaring before charging at Gaige and Krieg. Gaige jumped, leaping out of the way while switching to a Hyperion shotgun, and unloading all of the shells into the torso of the psycho. It stumbled, but I couldn't see what happened as at that moment, the psycho that charged at Krieg decided I was a better target. I ran at the psycho, sliding under it's legs and pulling out the Dahl SMG with no recoil. I fired, hitting the back of the psycho as it was searching for me. Yelling out, "Chew 'em up honey!" I threw my turret, it landed behind the psycho and immediately started firing at it. Grinning to myself, which Maya caught and grinned back, I opened fire on the psycho again, only for the ceiling to explode into rubble.

Jack's POV (Ha, didn't see this coming did ya?)

Man I love these Vault Hunters, they don't know when to give up! They're like cockroaches in a way, always there but never a real threat to me! "Hey everybody, how are ya, Jack here!" Man, I knew using the same line to intro here as I did with that belt-sander lady was a great choice on my part. Down below, I saw the soldier boy look up at me in disbelief, the blue siren with anger, the crazy dwarf looked up with glee was it? Weird. The little girl was shocked and, wait what? Was that subject 037895? Husband of 037894 and father of 037896? Wow. He survived. Congrats man just, wow. Look's like he's a bandit vault hunter but then again, when is a vault hunter not a bandit?

"Jack? How did you get here?" The siren shouted up at me after glancing worriedly at the soldier, maybe thinking about the lucrative offer I gave him almost 2 days ago. "How else?" I replied, "Personal Hyperion Dropship! Don't you guys hav- Oh no wait, you guys are DIRT POOR! HA! Not to mention, bandits, murderers, thieves, oh and wait, Somebody's keeping secrets from the rest!"

I saw the soldier mutter to the Dwarf and 037895 and pull something out while keeping his back to me. How rude. "Ready guys? 3, 2, 1 FIRE!" He yelled, and at the same time as the others, pulled out 3 Tediore rocket launchers. What! How did- No. It doesn't matter. I can still kill him and his little Vault Hunter Budd-

Boom.

Axton's POV

After we sent Jack's ship flying, Lilith turned to me and Maya. "The bloodshots took Roland, but I can teleport you to their base. Gimme a second, It will give you the element of surprise." she said. She looked at us for confirmation. Maya nodded seriously with no hesitation but I was more skeptical. What did she do to 'teleport' us? Eventually I nodded, unsure of what was about to happen. She closed her eyes and focused. A bright light enveloped us. Just as I felt us leaving, Gaige's scream filled the air. We appeared at the entrance to the Frostburn Canyon, all of us except Gaige.

**Authors note :**

**Heh. Don't kill me. I will try to make it up to you guys and stop promising unrealistic uploads. On a brighter note, I have 2 helpers, ChaoticChampion **_**(**__cc__**)**_** (Search him up and laugh at his lack of stories) and my good friend Dante. Just Dante. He kills if you call him anything else. They haven't found his brothers body yet. Be Back Soon! (Probably)**

_CC: Well I have fixed all your stuff…...do I get paid now preferably in nando's ?_

**Author:Hell no, we haven't even gotten to the Dust yet.**

_CC: awww ok then :'(_

_**Dante: What do i write?**_


	5. The truth about Zero

**In the words of my friend Chaotic :"Oh boy, here we go again. Oh and where's my nandos? Hey! What you doing with that sack? No-No!"**

_CC: Right then, hey guys (and girls maybe) I have kidnapped our loyal author and set him to rest a bit. Enjoy the chapter guys and girls !_

**I hate you**

_CC:hey now no one likes a whiner._

**Also, the Intro was written by Dante and will not set the rest of the story. He really wanted it to feature in this story**

_Dan:Mate, its sick, dont hate_

Axton's POV

(3 months after 'The Firehawk')

She walks into my office...I knew I never should have taken her case on. But hell, how could I say no to those goddamn, gorgeous, long legs. The room was smoky and the smell of scotch flew off my lips as I spoke. All the wrong words came out and my heart took over my mind. Just what kind of power does this dame have? I knew she had a husband, but I was damn ready to rip her blouse off and take the old broad for a spin like no man had ever done before... at least that's what the scotch made me think. Damn those damn legs...

"Hey Sugar, mind doing a little favour for little old me?"

"What is it Moxxi?" The bartender looked at me, disappointed that her flirting had failed. "Marcus stole one of my best guns, it has ahem, _special features_ on it that cost a fortune. Its called, 'Miss Moxxi's Good Touch', and I can't lose it. Please find it for me!"

"Why not got to Sal or Zero with this type of thing?"

"Can't trust 'em enough to give the gun back." Damm, she was right. Sal or Zero would probably take the gun for themselves, or give up at the mention of a discount with Marcus.

"Maya?"

"Looking for Gaige out around Pandora." Crap, I'd forgotten she was looking today. Ever since she went missing, all of the Vault Hunters had been taking shifts to look for the little Vault Hunter. No-one had found her and it was starting to show. Sal snapped at anyone who even looked at him, Maya started to drift away from the rest of the group, Krieg became more, well, Krieg, Zero didn't talk to anyone and me? I started taking on quests that were pointless and stupid.

"Fine, I'll find your gun, but I want 3000 for it, it's my turn looking tomorrow and I think I have a lead."

"Oh? What's the lead?"

"Scooter thinks his older sister might of found her. Her name's E-"

"Ellie right? She's my oldest child. Lives out in the Dust. Tell you what. You get my gun, I'll give you my gun and the Fast Travel co-ordinates to her place in the Dust.

I couldn't believe it. Here it was, the perfect opportunity, a new gun and the possible location of Gaige. I would be a fool to say no.

"Deal."

**LINE BREAK**

"Dammit Marcus, let me have the gun."

"Come now friend, why do you want this gun? I have so many more, like this Hyperion SMG fresh out of the hands of Hyperion troops! A pretty gift for that Siren friend of yours!"

Damn him. Couldn't he just give me the blasted gun? Then I had my best idea to date.

"Marcus?"

"What?"

"You know how Moxxi asked me for the gun back? Maybe I can get Krieg to come down here and convince you?" His eyes widened at my question, I guess Krieg was already making an impact on the citizens of Sanctuary. "You're as bad as a Jack Lover, Commando boy. Better watch your back. He will turn on you."

Maya's POV

10 Hours I spent searching for Gaige. I left Sanctuary in the early morning to to ask Lilith if she was going to move into Sanctuary and if she had any idea where Gaige was sent. The answer to both was no but I still didn't give up. I thought about going to Claptraps old place and checking the area where the train blew up. I spent several hours fighting off the local bandits because I had forgotten the co-ords for Claptraps place, the Windshear Waste.

When I got back to Sanctuary, I thought about when Gaige disappeared. Just before Jack appeared, Axton grinned. Did he know what was about to happen? Did he sell us out, for the safety of his ex-wife Sarah? I wouldn't hold it against him, he had known us for 6 months while he and Sarah were married for 15 years according to he knew I had no idea but there you go.

As I made my way to Marcus's place I noticed Axton was talking to him. Feeling curious, I decided to listen in to them, "Jack Lover" I heard Marcus say, "Commando boy. Better watch your back because he will turn on you." What was Marcus saying? Was Axton working with Jack to threaten him? Or maybe recruit him to Hyperion's side? Suddenly Axton said, the grin evident in his voice. "Dunno Marcus, we have a understanding. Thanks for the gun. Now to get my reward."

I saw a room next to the shop's entrance, boxes stacked all around it. Leaping, I made my way behind the boxes watching Axton walk out of the shop and pull out his ECHO communicator. Choosing a contact, he put the communicator up to his head and spoke quietly into it. "Alright, I got the gun. Now, I believe you owe me something in return. Where is she?" Looking satisfied, he hung up. At that moment, I decided to walk out of the storeroom I was hiding in. "Alright Axton? Who were you talking to?" He turned around faster than I could blink and said, "Moxxi, she asked me to find her gun." Bullshit. "Cool, you know it's your day to look for Gaige tomorrow right?"

"Yeah, about that, could I go right now instead? I just got a lead." Does he think I'm that stupid? "Sure, but take Zero with you. It's getting dark outside."

"Cool."

**LINE BREAK**

Zero's POV

I can't believe Maya's making me go with Axton. Alone. What if I say something that reminds him of well, me? "So Zero, what was your life like before you became an assassin?" I turned to look at him, and pulled out my Hyperion Sniper Rifle, All the Vault Hunters knew that the moment I looked down the sights in this outstandingly accurate sniper, something died. I never missed with this gun. I saw his friendly smile fade off his face, as the commando realised there was no life apart from them. I knew this was a bad idea and we had just left Sanctuary.

We got to the Catch-A-Ride station, and we spawned in our cars. After the Firehawk thing, Scooter had made us all our own cars. Axton's was a blood red colour with a mounted rocket launcher, while my car was a sleek black runner with a MG on it. We jumped in our cars and I followed Axton to the Three Horns Valley. We ended up at the Happy Pig Motel. "Huh. Looks like the powers out." Axton stated. "Should we head out or stay here? It's going to take a couple of hours to get there at least either way." In answer to that jumped in my runner, and drove off to a sign that said 'The Dust'. I heard Axton behind me, trying to catch up but once I got behind a wheel, no-one could catch up to me.

We drove on a motorway and was immediately greeted by Hyperion Personal, lead by Jack."Hello Assassin and Commando! Want a burger?" Getting out of our cars, we each pulled out our weapons, me with a Mailwan Shock Pistol, and Axton with the Hyperion shotgun he last used in the Firehawks lair. Jack looked at us with gleefully, like he had a secret he was bursting to tell us. "So I offer you food, and you repay me with violence? See, you guys have already turned native! Come buddies, sit down and have some food." We pointed our weapons at him. "Please, you'll fire off 3 shots, then my robots will kill you. I know they're not much, but you couldn't take on a fully equiped WAR loader or a Badass Loader now. We lowered our weapons and looked at each other. We knew we couldn't take him on, and right now we had to find Gaige.

"So Axton, how goes the search for the Friendship Gulag? It was awfully rude of you to tell me to, how did you put it?"

At this Axton looked murderously at Jack, and reply with an equally murderous tone, "Go shove that offer up your ass and give me my wife back before I make you give her back." I looked at Axton incredulously at this. Just before leaving Maya explained she thought Axton had betrayed us and to keep a close eye on him. It was hard to believe that he chose to keep us all safe instead of rescuing Sarah. With a start, I realised that Axton trusted Sarah to stay strong until he came to collect her.

"Yeah, thats what you said. So, tell me, why shouldn't I have you killed right now?"

"Because if you killed us, Maya would hunt you down for killing us, then resurrect us and kill us for being killed." He laughed, "Please, the siren chick? I know how to deal with sirens, it's a occupational hazard when you're me. No. Anyway, I just stopped by to tell you that if you continue down this road, literally and metaphorically, you'll bring around Sanctuary's destruction. So if you could just do me a favour and turn around, that'd be great. Thanks pumpkins."

Gritting my teeth, I looked at Axton. He had seemed to reach the same conclusion as me, Jack didn't want us finding Gaige, but she would ultimately cause the destruction of Sanctuary? How? Axton voiced these thoughts and in reply Jack said, "She's hiding a lot of secrets from you guys, one of which impacts us all. So it's in both our interests to leave her behind."

In response, I pulled out my sniper rifle, making Jack frown. "Look's like you guys made your choice… Too bad really, you guys would have made great generals." At some unseen signal, a bullet pierced the air, hitting me in the chest, right in line with my heart. Luckily, the second suit I wore underneath the robotic suit absorbed some of the damage, so I was pushed back a bit. From both sides of where Jack was now standing, robots that I recognized as Badass Loaders started firing at us both.

"Badass Incoming!" Axton and I yelled at the same time, making him glance at me uncertainly. Crap. We split up, taking a badass on from both sides. I started climbing it, firing shock bullets into it's leg at times. Axton threw his turret out, while taking out weak chinks in it's armour. Jumping on it's head, I opened up the control panel. Pulling out my Katana, I slashed at wires, making the robot go bezerk. "Go!" I screamed at Axton, forgetting to put my voice modulator on. "Get the other Badass! I got this one." Looking shocked and dazed, he nooded and ran off to fight the other robot. By now my robot was firing rockets at random areas of the motorway we were on, a rocket getting dangerously close to my sleek runner. Cars and runners alike were getting blasted onto the motorway, some going upside down. I found what I was looking for, the self-destruct button. Pressing it, I jumped off the robot, giving it a double kick in the direction of the edge of the motorways edge.

Turning around, I saw Axton standing over the broken form of his badass, just as Jack screamed, "GET THEM! DON'T LET THEM LEAVE ALIVE!" Bullets strafing over us, I grabbed Axton's hand and sprinted for the runners, only to feel several bullets, fire, slag and shock, hit me repeatedly in the back, breaking through both my suits and entering my body. I heard Axton yell out, only to lose consciousness.

Gaige's POV

In the three months I've been living with Ellie, I've had twice that number of talks with my Guardian Angel who I last saw after killing Flynt. She talked with me about Jack's plans for Pandora, staying away from one subject, his catalyst. Whenever I brought it up, she looked scared and hastily changed the subject. I learned that Jack planned to open the Vault, and unleash a beast called the Warrior when Jack would harness the Warriors energy and wipe Sanctuary off the map. The visit last night though, scared me down to the bone. She told me about Axton's and Zero's ambush on their way here and that I should expect them soon after I woke up, which was now.

Ellie walked, no, waddled into my room. "Alright sugar? Some handsome man is here looking for you, want me to send him away?" Thoughts rushing through my head, I decided she meant Axton, as Zero would never show his face. "Yeah Ellie, send them in, and I'll take my runner out after this, the Hondunks weapon delivery should be running through soon."

Axton walked into my room staggered, like he was holding something heavy. "Hey kid, how's life?" Unable to help myself, I laughed. Even after worrying about me for 3 months, he still treats me like nothing happened. "What happened to you? I thought Zero was coming with you?" The words came out before I could stop them, and Axton looked at me. "Who told you that? I didn't know Zero was coming until we left, and I don't think any of the Vault Hunters would be contacting you and not telling the rest of us."

I looked like a skag caught in the fire of a fast runner MG. "I'll tell you later, it's something that only happened to me recently." He looked at me, but nodded. At that moment, Zero appeared, his suit damaged heavily. "Crap, it wore off already? We need to fix your suit." When only silence emerged, we both looked at the mysterious Vault Hunter and saw he was unconscious.

We took the suit off Zero, and saw that he had a second suit on, that hugged his, er , her figure closely. It was black, and looked very erm, flexible. Looking at Axton, I saw his dumbfounded face. "Didn't you know?" I asked him. His face told me all I needed to know. Gentelly, we removed her helmet, and I heard Axton gasp quietly. She had very prominent cheekbones, and sun-kissed skin, which I found weird seeing as she stayed inside a suit for most of the day. Her hair was bright orange, with flecks of red stranded around randomly. Overall she was beautiful and seeing Axton's reaction, he thought so too. Snapping out of the distraction that was Zero, Axton turned to me and said, "She was hit in the back, do you have bandages and tweezers?" I nodded and got him the supplies he needed while her turned her around.

The back of her suit was torn and bloody, with dried blood looking like rust on the remains of the suit.

"No protection" I heard Axton mutter next to me, but I couldn't drag my eyes away from the bloody back of one of the people who protected me through the train bomb, Knuckle Dragger, Boom Bewm, Flynt and many others. Grabbing my shoulders, Axton propelled me through the door, keeping my eyes shut so that I couldn't see anymore of Zero.

3rd Person POV

After escorting Gaige through the door, Axton got to work on Zero. He pulled at least 12 bullets out of her back, all the time thinking that Frankie, the young specialist on Promethia was actually the silent assassin he was stuck with.

He noticed that even with all the bullets and blood, Frankie still looked good. Pulling what looked like the last bullet out of her back, he started to mop up the blood off her back, both fresh and old. He looked at the wound and sighing, he grabbed his hatchet. Placing it between her teeth, he poured alcohol on her wounds. Frankie woke up at that, felt a stinging like the ones she last got at the military and tried screaming, only to be stopped by what looked like Axton's hatchet. Recognizing it as Axton's hatchet and realizing who was pouring the still stinging alcohol. Grimacing, Axton held down Frankie removing the alcohol and applying a bandage on the wound whispering, "Stay down soldier, the worst's over now. Just got to keep this bandage here." Guiding her hand to the bandage he said in the same tone as before, "Keep your hand here, I'll be back."

On the other side of Three Horns Valley, two sirens planned for an assault on a giant bandit clan, when Jack appeared on a widespread ECHOcast. "Hey Bandits! Guess what! I've killed off one of your little Vault Hunters! Yeah the masked freak! Say goodbye, cos guess what Blue Siren? Soldier boy never betrayed you, and you just sent a friend to their death!"

**Hey guys! I did it! Regular updates! I'd like to thank ChaoticChampion and Dante for the motivation, the ideas and loads more! (You should see our comments on this piece of work, they get weird!) Please review on mine and ChaoticChampion's work, and thanks to anyone who followed/favorited this story!**

_(CC):Thanks dude I Try my best. Do read my stuff I do try to keep a good update schedule so look out for updates._

_Dan: I may also start a story but I don't know as of yet, but carry on with this story, theres been alot of time and effort put into it so if you dont, imma break ya :)_

**Bye from me!**


	6. Authors Note

I am putting Borderlands 2: A new tale on hold to create a collab story with chaoticchampion... A Harry Potter Prequel and Sequel (James and the mauraders era then Harry Ron and Hermione era)

We're going to put OC's into this story so if you have an OC PM me or chaotic and let us know the

Name of the character

The characters age

House

Marauder era or Golden Trio era

And anything else you want to say about the character!

Sorry about this!

DarkSkul


	7. Roland, Sarah and Dead Bandits

**Hello and welcome to Chapter 7, which will continue immediately after Chapter 6. Enjoy!**

Lilith's POV

"Soldier boy never betrayed you, but you just send him to his death!? That is hysterical! See this is why you can NEVER trust a bandit!" Jack proclaimed smugly, as he disconnected from the turned to look at Maya. She was frozen in place, all action stopped except for the tears that threatened to spill.

"Lil" She said, her voice throttled by anger. "How quickly can we get to the Bloodshot lair?" Lilith gulped, knowing the consequences of an angry, emotional Siren. "Not far, a couple of hours tops.", She answered cautiously.

"Get Sal and Krieg, we're going hunting." That was how, two hours later, two blood-red runners pulled up outside the bandit stronghold. We all pulled up at the gate, angry and vengeful. Growling, Maya honked her horn. "Alright alright I'm opening the gate!" As the gate lowered, another bandit called Flanksteak yelled out, "Don't open the gate nimrod! Thats not one of our technicals! They're here for our prisoner! KILL THEM!"

At this several bandits jumped over the fence separating the bandits from the Vault Hunters. Yelling out, Maya jumped out of her car, followed closely by Krieg and pulled out their weapons, Maya with a Maliwan Fire SMG, Krieg with the shock variety of the same weapon and Salvador pulling out a Jakobs shotgun. He fired at the first bandit stupid enough to attack him, who exploded into cloud of red mist and dismembered limbs. Krieg jumped over Maya, firing at the bandits while rushing recklessly at them. Angry and vengeful, Maya pulled one of them up in her Phaselock, while she took aim at the other unfortunate bandits who dropped like flies. Shrieking, she pulled out a Torque assault rifle which she used to torture the poor bandit stuck in her Phaselock.

"Reminds me of Elpis" muttered Lilith, remembering the days she spent on Pandora's moon with her boyfriend, until Jack and his team of Vault Hunters had interrupted. Sighing, she went into Phasewalk, sprinting towards a group of bandits that were staying far away from the other Vault Hunters. Blasting them, she pulled out a bandit pistol, and started picking them off. Looking around once she finished, she noticed that the others had just finished as well. "Open up!" Maya cried, slamming her fist on the steel fence separating her from the other bandits, Lilith hesitantly walking up to her. "Maya, maybe we should leave and come back? It looks like we're going to have to get technicals that look like theirs. I know someone in the Dust who can do that for us" Maya turned to the elder Siren with something akin to hope in her eyes.

"Really? But what about Roland? Don't you want to save him?"

"Of course I do, but we're going to need everyone on top form to save him, you especially. C'mon, lets go."

With that they all departed towards the dust, observing the result of what looked like the aftermath of an battle, blood and machinery everywhere. Looking at the blood made Lilith's stomach turn, 'which Vault Hunter died' she thought to herself. It was then a cry of anguish and pain came from Maya, as she had found the katana Zero used everyday. Rubbing Maya's back, Lilith silently prayed for Zero's safe return, as unlikely it might be.

They set off again, this time never stopping to look at the blood or the mess they saw. Eventually Lilith's runner, with Sal stuck as the gunner, turned left, driving into a massive stretch of land, with nothing but sand and spiderants in sight. Driving towards where she knew Ellie's place to be, she quickly saw the woman talking to a bandit, stuck inside a bandit technical. "Screw you! I should of killed you when I had the chance!" The bandit cried, while Ellie, the woman that she was simply replied, "Sorry what was that? You're going to have to speak up!" before crushing the bandit, car and all. Looking around, she saw Lilith and the new vault hunters. "More Vault Hunters? I had one of you come in earlier, but he left with the little girl just a few moments ago, if you want I can ECHO him…?"

Lilith was torn. She wanted to rescue Roland, but they needed Ellie to get them in ASAP, but on the other hand Axton had found Gaige and could both be useful in a fight. Deciding to find them later, Lilith replied, "No thanks Ellie, we need a bandit technical that will fool the bloodshots. Have one around here somewhere?"

"Course I do, it's the one that's in my grin- oh wait. I crushed it with the driver still inside, sorry about that. I have a vanilla one in the workshop, It just needs some details, blood, spikes, skulls, those sorts of things. If you go and get me them, I can add them to this one right here. Off you go now, shoo!"

Sighing in disappointment, Lilith jumped back in her runner, driving off to find some bandits for herself and the other vault hunters to kill to save Roland.

Zero's POV

"After Promethia, I was found by a group of men who took me into their home, fixed up my injuries. After a while I found out they were a group of assassins, who were being chased by Hyperion. I learned their ways, became an assassin myself. I grew close to one of them, Dante, and we were like siblings, always fighting over silly things but we'd have each others back in a fight. Two years ago Hyperion found us, and killed my mentor, Peter. We escaped to Elpis, Pandora's moon. Dante and I created my 'Zero' suit, that I started wearing all the time on jobs."

"What made you come to Pandora then? There had to be a reason."

"Yes, the assassination of Jack. I swore when Peter died that I would kill Jack, to avenge him if you will."

"Frankie, didn't you try and find us? Let us know you were alright?"

"Who do you think unlocked the shuttle for you back on Themis? I just didn't want to burden you. I'm sorry about what happened to Sarah by the way."

"Don't worry about it. Do you mind if I call Gaige back in here?"

"Nah go ahead." Axton then left the room to find the youngest Vault Hunter. After a short while her ECHO flashed, indicating she had a new message.

"Hey Frankie it's Dante! Miss me? Course ya did, Anyway listen, Khai joined forces with Jack, now you have to deal with him and Jackie at the same time. pain in the ass right? I know. I'm arriving in Pandora soon, I'll come find you, Ciao Kid." Damn, that meant problems for the assassin. Khai was the other member of the assassin group she had joined. He was the reason Hyperion found them, selling them all out for money. But if Dante was coming back it must be serious.

Just then Axton walked into the room with Gaige on his shoulders. Trying not to laugh, Frankie said, "How did that happen?"

"Little tyke hid and jumped me. Anyway, do you feel ready to kill robots? I want to head out to the Friendship Gulag Jack was talking about and try and rescue Sarah. She could help us to fight Jack. What do you say?"

"Sure, but before we go, I wanted to tell you that my friend Dante is coming to Pandora. He'll help as well if it means killing Jack. Turns out another member of the team I was on is working with Jack. Should we head out?"

"Umm Sure." Driving through the Dust was a new experience for Frankie, as dust would blow into her face at high speeds every second. It didn't hurt, as she was wearing her mask, but it was still obstructing her vision. She could only imagine what Axton and Gaige were going through. They were driving in front of her, their blood red runner standing out while her beige runner would be very hard to spot without the rocket launcher on the top. It took a couple of hours, during which Axton found the same gambling machines that you could find in Moxxi's Bar, they all robbed a caravan that was transporting three corrosive weapons for the Hodunks, a SMG which went to Gaige, the assault rifle was quickly snatched away by Axton, leaving Frankie with the sniper rifle. They all left the caravan happy, their new weapons tucked by their sides for Gaige, and on Axton and Frankie's backs.

Eventually they got to the Friendship Gulag. Standing by the gates was a figure dressed in a light grey trenchcoat that moved with the wind, wrapping itself around the figures body. A sword Frankie recognised as a nodachi was strapped onto his back, the sun glinting off the long handle and longer blade.. She couldn't see it, but she knew on the right side of the trenchcoat, a heavy pistol with the inscription, " _Never forget who you are." _was strapped against his body, ready to pull out at a moments notice. This was Dante, the assassin that Frankie spent the majority of her training with.

"Dante!" She yelled, running up to the man and embracing him in a big hug. Dante returned the hug and looked over the other two Vault Hunters. "Axton and Gaige right? Quite the history's you two have, one an ex-soldier who's ex-wife is in the gulag behind me, awkward, and the other _accidentally_ murdered her high school bully with the robot she built, which by the way is awesome. Nice to meet you." He took a moment to compose himself. " I'm Dante, been on Elpis for a while before this, after the mess between Dahl and Hyperion a few years be fair I should have killed Jack then really, but never mind! I'm sure we can all work together to save Sarah, who will be executed live on ECHOnet in about 3 hours. Let's go!" And with that, they all walked into the friendship gulag, guns held high.

Maya's POV

Killing bandits was fun. Maya found that when angry, her power increased and became more destructive. She saw this out when she phase-locked someone, which in turn pulled enemies toward him while the phase-lock exploded in a fiery mess, leaving charred, electrofied, slagged bandit corpses around her in a circle. In the Dust however, the brutal sandstorms worked in her favour, with most being too scared to attack her with that weather. She would occasionally help out Lilith ,Sal and Krieg, with the bandits they were attacking but, she couldn't really keep track of them once the storm hit.

The wind blew the dust in the enemy's faces, distracting them until the moment Maya, the swirling embodiment of death that she was,caught up to them. The wind tossed carcasess around like paper bags, the bodies falling like rocks. Lilith had already collected all the pieces that they needed for the car, but their runners blew up a long time ago. Now the four Vault Hunters were stuck in the middle of a sandstorm, bandits constantly swarming them, forcing them to fight to get back to Ellie's place. "Arrrg! For the love of God! I need help over here guys! They think swarming the dwarf is their best option!"

Maya cursed, with Sal out of the fight they would be outnumbered soon. Shrieking in rage, she created a fire nova blast, as she started sprinting savagely towards Sal. Helping the dwarf up, they took care of a number of bandits before the others finally realized the danger they were in. Watching them run away, Maya turned to Lilith, "How far away is Ellie's? We need to get there fast. Sal is seriously wounded and won't be able to walk far."

The older siren looked worried at this news. "Too far. We'd never make it in time, unless we could drive which normally wouldn't be a problem but we are too far away from the Catch-A-Ride."

"Crap." Just then a bandit technical, painted in Hyperion yellow, pulled up beside them. Maya pulled her gun up to the driver, when she noticed his clean shaven chin, and the Dahl turret on his shoulder. "Axton?" She asked hesitantly, as they were in a Hyperion coloured technical. "Hey, miss us?" He asked, his usual cocky grin plastered all over his face. "SHUT UP AND HELP THEM!" came a new, angry, female voice from the back. Looking around, Maya saw a woman, around the same age as Axton, with Gaige on her lap. Across from her, a man she didn't recognise was sleeping, his entire body parallel to the car. Looking in the gunner seat however, Maya saw Zero. "Zero? How did you survive?" He looked at her, with an expression that said it all. Sighing, she helped Lilith load the sleeping Salvador in the back of the technical, and then climbed in herself. Squeezing herself between the bottom back of the gunning seat and the unknown woman, Maya kept her hand on Sal's stomach, in order to prevent him slipping out.

Lilith sat next to the woman, looking at the mysterious man with something like, familiarity. 'Did she know him?' Maya thought to herself, while watching Krieg jump on the side bars next to and above the driver, hanging next to Axton. They drove for hours in silence, no-one wanting to break the awkward tension between them. Eventually they got to Ellie's, fixing the vanilla technical in the garage so that they could spawn one whenever they liked. Leaving the Hyperion one outside, the group spawned three different cars. Axton, Gaige, Zero, the now awake stranger and the unknown woman all sat in the one technical, while Maya and Krieg got in a smaller runner. Sal and Lilith were staying behind, as someone needed to tend to Sal's wounds. Before they left, Maya said, "Alright, who are the new people? If we're going to rescue Roland, I want to know everyone i'm fighting with."

"Alright Maya." said Axton, "This bloke here is Dante, we met him in the Friendship Gulag. He's agreed to help us out as long as Jack dies along the way. He's an assassin. This lovely lady right here, is Sarah. We rescued her inside the Friendship Gulag. Any questions? Good!" Leaving Maya dumbfounded, the first group took off, going up the ramp outside Ellie's. Not wanting to be outdone, Maya quickly followed them in her onyx runner, Krieg as the gunner.

Trying to catch up to Axton's technical, Maya thought about the fact that Axton had rescued Sarah from Hyperion and what he would do now. He'd been all but accused by her as a traitor, sending Zero to monitor Axton when he went out on his own. Maya knew that if he wanted to, he could just leave and leave the rest of them on Pandora. He had no attachments to them, no obligation to help now that Sarah was safe. Too distracted by her thoughts, Maya didn't realise that she was about to drive off a cliff. Only the fact that Axton had driven up next to her runner and forcefully steered the runner away from the cliff. "Thanks Axton, I was distracted."

"Don't worry about it. Anyways, we're almost there so why don't you get in this tech and I'll drive this runner? Don't want you getting distracted while you're driving."

"Ok." Sitting in the back of the blood-red technical was different. Maya could see the advantages of these cars, as at least three people could not do anything and let the driver concentrate. Dante was cleaning a suspicious red liquid off the sword on his back, while Gaige was playing with a new SMG. Finally they arrived at the BloodShot Stronghold. Honking the horn, the same guy from the previous day answered. "Alright boys, it's one of ours. Let 'em in while I try and get Hyperion back on the horn." At this the gate lowered. "Thats bad news for us…" Dante muttered to Maya, as so Gaige couldn't hear them. "Why?" She answered, at the same volume. "Hyperion don't negotiate with bandits, especially for the 'Leader of the Resistance', they'd probably send a squad here to take him forcefully."

The gate finally lowered, and the 6 figures, 4 Vault Hunters and 2 others, jumped out of the two cars. Pulling their guns out, they sprinted at the wandering bandits. Sarah used a Dahl SMG, taking out anyone stupid enough to attack her. Dante was a whirlwind of death, not even using a gun to kill them. He sliced at enemies, leaving bloody carcass behind. Even after the rest of the rescue party had stopped killing, Dante had sheathed his sword and was using his fists. "Yeah! How do you like that!" he cried, just before a bullet knocked him on his back unmoving.

"Hahaha you cocky idiot..." While the rest of the rescue party stared at the body of Dante, Zero started laughing. Maya was scared by it, as she had never seen Zero display emotion before, let alone laugh. "Alright, Alright. Consider my lesson learned. Finish a fight quickly and get the reward quicker and all that." All the surrounding team were amazed to see Dante stand after speaking to Zero. He reached into his jacket, and in a second, all the bandits were dead and Dante was holding an old pistol, with smoke trailing out of it. In Maya's opinion there was writing on the side of the gun but she could of imagined it. Looking at the dead bandits in awe, Axton said, "Can you teach me to do that?"

" was fun, lets do it again!." He replied. "All you need is training, patience, and specially modified bullets that can decimate a shield in seconds. The sniper rifle I use makes this gun look like a toy. Want to see it?"

At the vigorous nod of Axton's head, Dante laughed and said, "Maybe later. That fight with the guy with the awesome hair and the awesome jacket took a lot out of me. I'm going to wait here and recover. Good Luck!" At this, Dante, legs crossed, fell asleep. Sighing, Maya moved Dante into the back of the technical with his gun and sword next to him. As she got back, the rest of the rescue party heard Flanksteak on the ECHO. "Get 'em BadMaw!"

At this the gate opened forcefully, as a figure leaped from the base. He landed with a thud, forcing the rest of the Rescue Team to stumble. Maya noticed that 'BadMaw' was a big nomad, with a shotgun and a shield with three midgets tied to it. Feeling sorry for the midgets, Maya shot at the rope constraining the midgets, releasing them. As one, the team charged at the bandit, firing their weapons at him, only to hit the shield. The midgets were dead, being battered to death by the steel shield. Annoyed, Maya phaselocked BadMaw, suspending him in mid-air for Axton, Zero and Sarah to fire at. Using this tactic, the giant bandit was soon dead, and the squad was inserting the key into a mechanism that lowered the steel drawbridge.

No ones POV.

Entering the stronghold for the first time, the first thing the squad noticed was the overpowering stench of blood. Everywhere they went smelled like it. Wandering around for a few minutes, they came across a few bandits. Yelling and charging in, Axton opened fire on the bandits, dropping them like flies. Sighing, Maya, Frankie, Gaige and Kriegfollowed him, taking out the bandits Axton missed. Throwing a grenade, Axton slid on the ground towards a bruiser, firing two shots from his Hyperion shotgun into the bandits chest at point blank range. Watching the bandit explode into red mist, Axton stood up and leapt at another enemy, firing again.

Minutes later the squad had killed all the bandits, picking up all the guns they had dropped. Gaige chose that moment to come running in, screaming about a badass nomad. At that, said nomad burst through into the room, swinging his shield at Sarah. She was sent flying backward, only to crash into the wall, unmoving. Gritting his teeth, Axton threw his turret behind the nomad, and then proceeded to shoot at the shield with every bullet in his shotgun. Maya, Gaige, Frankie and Krieg watched in fascination as the bandit was torn between defending from Axton, or his deadly turret. Eventually the bandit staggered and, taking his opportunity, Axton fired two rounds point blank into the bandits face. Watching it fall, Axton screamed at the top of his voice, " AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!"

At this Axton and Gaige sprinted forward, while Maya looked at Frankie with something like confusion. "Didn't you say something similar when you killed a bandit?" Under her mask, Frankie was nervous. She didn't tell the other Vault Hunters her identity on the train because what use was a assassin that told others her identity. If Maya had figured out her identity, she would have to leave. Only Axton knew her identity, and she knew he wouldn't tell. Looking impassively at Maya, she walked away, hoping beyond hope Maya wouldn't figure it out.

Catching up to Axton and Gaige, Maya saw they were fighting a horde of bandits in a circular room, with what looked like a whirlpool in the middle. Axton and Gaige were back to back. shooting any bandit in their sights. Frankie was fighting solo, using her katana and a Jakobs pistol to decimate the bandit population. Krieg was slicing and dicing, not caring how many bandits were in front of him. Maya sighed, and then phaselocked a regular nomad, taking him out of the fight while taking out his friends. The five Vault Hunters took out the Bloodshot bandits with efficiency, not letting anyone escape their bullets.

Eventually, they reached the top. They continued down several hallways until they saw a man sleeping on a bed, behind cages. Realising this man was Roland. all the Vault Hunters started to attack the cages. "Vault Hunters? Good to meet you. I'm Roland." Roland said, before the wall behind him exploded, revealing two robots Frankie recognised as GUN Loaders. "This will just take a second." Roland said, before grabbing the first bandit and throwing him against the wall. The second one shot at him, knocking him to the floor. He turned, revealing a machine gun ripped from the first robot. Shooting the second one, he stood up and addressed the Vault Hunters again. "Lets see about getting me out of these bars. Where's Lilith? I thought she would of came with you."

The Vault Hunters saw, behind Roland, a giant robot, that shot beams of light at Roland, trapping him and holding him above it. Creating a giant jail around Roland, the robot floated away, leaving Axton and the others dumbfounded. Seeing the wall next to the cell explode into rubble, the Vault Hunters chased after the robot.

**FINALLY! YES! Thank you to all my reviewers, and everyone else who reads this. I couldn't have completed this without Dante, the inspiration behind Dante, and ChaoticChampion who yelled at me every day until this was complete. As a side note, only Axton and Frankie will refer to Zero as Frankie so yeah. I will try to get Chap 8 up soon, but I now have another story to work on aswell. Myabe in two weeks if my exams don't hold me up. Ciao!**

**~DarkSkul**


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